the Jalisco and Sinaloan Mexican cartels are increasingly renting thousands of U.S. trucks and cars each year, driving them across the border to keep top capos in the latest model BMWs and Cadillacs. (sure would be easy to stop each vehicle heading south, get an scan for rental car's trackers before allowing them out of the country, if Border Patrol gave a damn) thank you Don!

Each year, about 2,000 vehicles stolen from California end up in Mexico, according to the California Highway Patrol. LAPD Sgt. Juvey Mejia, a member of the Task Force for Regional Auto Theft Prevention, said the cartels love heavy-duty pickup trucks and Jeeps.

“Anything that can drive through tough terrain to get away from Border Patrol so they can move dope,” Mejia said.

Along with Chevy Suburbans, Ford Raptors and Toyota pickups, the vehicles of choice include Cadillac Escalades and BMW SUVs, according to people whose job is to recover them. To battle rival cartels or authorities, criminal groups sometimes convert the trucks into mutant tanks, adding heavy ballistic-proof steel plating, firing ports and gun mounts.

The thefts don’t require much stealth: vehicles are rented in the U.S. by cartel operatives and then driven across the border.

Unlike other states, California requires that rental agencies wait to turn on GPS tracking until the vehicle return deadline has passed and the renter has been contacted by the company. By then, most stolen vehicles are deep in Mexican territory.

“California allows criminals to take advantage of the fact that we are not allowed to see where the vehicle is until it’s too late,” Laguana said. The American Car Rental Assn., a trade group, said in a statement that California laws make it harder to recover vehicles.

this year, thieves stole six 2026 model Jeep Wranglers from Oakland and Las Vegas. Four have been recovered so far. Private investigators believe the vehicles were destined for the Sinaloa Cartel.

The same investigators received requests last week to recover a dozen Ram trucks tracked to Sinaloa and seven more in Durango state.

“For the cartel, it is the cheapest way for them to do business,” said Kevin Carter, owner of Collateral Consultants, a rental car recovery company in Texas. “There’s no sense in them buying a car when they could rent one for a few hundred bucks, and it’s theirs forever.”

Along with California, Texas and Arizona are the other top targets for Mexican criminal groups.

Many vehicles are never registered in the U.S. stolen car database. Carter, from Collateral Consultants, said that of the approximately 1 million cases he has seen in his 15 years recovering rental vehicles in the U.S. and elsewhere, fewer than half made it into the U.S. database.

In 2024, the Colorado attorney general’s office indicted 17 people associated with the Sinaloa Cartel, accusing them of stealing 190 new Ford F150s and luxury suburbans near the Denver airport. The cartel operatives drove the stolen vehicles, valued at nearly $10 million, to Mexico, according to court documents, and exchanged them for cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine.

In the Texas border city of Laredo, Deputy Police Chief Timothy Tubbs said he has seen a 50% increase in the theft of rental vehicles — about 10 a month.

https://archive.is/20261011134146/https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-10-11/mexican-cartels-are-building-luxury-fleets-by-stealing-u-s-rental-cars#selection-3455.0-3459.153